


the beauty that remains

by lightningwaltz



Category: Final Fantasy VI
Genre: Banter, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Operas, Post-Canon, Sharing a Room, World of Ruin (Final Fantasy), Worldbuilding, and they were ROOMMATES, mentions of Darill, references to Celes being a child soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 07:08:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29096286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightningwaltz/pseuds/lightningwaltz
Summary: Setzer ends up being responsible for Celes’s latest foray into the performing arts.
Relationships: Celes Chere/Setzer Gabbiani
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	the beauty that remains

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wingsyouburn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wingsyouburn/gifts).



> Hello wingsyouburn1
> 
> Thank you for the inspiring prompts. It was great fun getting to revisit some of my favorite characters in my favorite canon. I hope you enjoy!

Setzer ends up being responsible for Celes’s latest foray into the performing arts. 

Not that she’s expecting any such thing on the evening he appears in their shared lodgings in Narshe. Instead, she’s scrutinizing her coursework from the Adventuring School and growing more dismayed by the minute. The window near her desk feels like it’s wavering and contracting. It’s hard to know whether it’s due to the icy winds outside or Celes’s frostbitten temper. 

For a long time she doesn’t hear footsteps. And when she does, her long-dormant battle instincts nearly make her want to throw a quill at the intruder. Funny, since she’s at the kitchen table and a butter knife is also within reaching distance. It probably wouldn’t do much damage to anyone, though. 

The sound of Setzer’s familiar laughter soothes her, even if she’s embarrassed. She mumbles her hellos - in a vague attempt to steer the conversation away from her mistake - but Setzer won’t let her go so easily.

“Now, now,” he says, “is that any way to treat your roommate?”

It’s harder to respond to this than one might think. 

For so many years she had had superiors and subordinates. There was little fostering loyalty between soldiers of the same rank. They were all meant to be cannon fodder, and to take a great amount of pride in it. Their bones were meant to pave the way to empire, and she’d never have called any of them something so banal and benign as 'roommate.' Not even if they shared the same barracks for years. 

Now, though, she and Setzer own a modest house in Narshe together. This is mostly due to convenience. The steppes in between Narshe and the Figaro Desert were, apparently, a great location to safely store an airship. A couple years ago, he realized that the reconfiguration of the world might have dredged up Darill’s remains if she’d fallen into the sea. He couldn’t spend all of his days up in the air, though, and whenever he wants to come back to earth he returns to Celes.

Celes, meanwhile, was bent on making up for lost time. She had decided she wanted to attend one of the few remaining academies in the world. She’s found that she could teach a great number of the courses herself. However, she’s also made the unhappy discovery that there are some classes in which she clearly knows less than any of Terra’s children. 

Setzer must be used to Celes gathering his thoughts. He slips out of his coat and tosses it onto the hanger without making sure it landed on one of the spokes. Then he finds Celes’s kettle presumably exactly where he expected to find it. 

“I know that glare isn’t for me!” he calls out, as he helps himself to a teacup. 

“No? Why shouldn’t I be angry at a roommate who’s rarely here?” After so many days spent in quiet, studious pursuit, Celes’s voice sounds a little sore from disuse. 

“If that were the case you’d be angrier at Sabin. At least I’m here every other week!”

Ah, right. Sabin’s name was also on the deed to this house. He spends most of his days roaming the world, but every summer he returns to the mountains of Narshe. During that season, the weather would turn just enough to melt some of the frozen waterfalls. He’d meditate under them for days at a time, and then come to Celes’s home to sleep off all that enlightenment. Despite having no schedule that Celes can discern, Setzer always makes sure to be here during that season. Something about being the first few to reunite after the cataclysm had created an almost gravitational pull between the three of them. 

“Fine,” she says, realizing for the millionth time how well he knows her. “I’m angry at myself.” 

“Oh?” Setzer looks as windswept as ever. Never mind that he’s landed his airship miles away; sometimes it seems as though he doesn’t need any sort of craft to fly. Celes half expects him to float out the window and back up into the sky. Tea cup in hand and all. 

The thought warms her, for some reason, and it sands out the sharper edges of her frustration. 

“We are going over the history of Doma at the Adventuring School and I was so wrong about it.” 

Setzer looks unbothered. “There’s no shame in not knowing about something.”

“That’s not it, though. I _thought_ I knew it. We spent so much time on academics while training for the Gestahlian army. So much of what’s in here-” Celes taps the corner of her book roughly- “completely contradicts what we were told.” 

“What were you told?” 

Celes sighs. “That it was a dissolute, ineffective kingdom and that it had been so for centuries. Above all we were taught they needed our guidance, so occupying the kingdom would be a matter of morality.” 

Setzer tries to take a sip and winces at the heat. “The last king’s father _was_ pretty corrupt, but his son was very bent on reform of the bureaucracy. Sounds like the Empire took a kernel of truth and built lies around on it.”

“Some of those king’s reforms involved putting stronger restrictions on gambling, I bet.” Celes is more amused than she allows her voice to reveal. 

“Oh, please.” Setzer clicks his tongue. “Can’t a man simply know the socio-political landscape of a place because he’s interested?” 

And, just like that, Celes’s mood turns sour again. 

“That’s what I mean. You were allowed to wonder things and investigate them. I wasn’t, and…” She frowns, because she doesn’t want to dismiss her own free will. “Well, we did have a library in the palace at Vector. And I could have paid more attention when I was out there in the world. I didn’t, for the most part.”

“Ah, but what books were kept _out_ of the library? And what did they tell you was worth noticing?”

Celes’s thoughts turn to Maranda (as they often do, even now.) Sacking a city was something of an engineering problem. She’d turned off part of her soul in order to figure out how to start the most efficient conflagration. It had been worth noticing the shape and make of houses, and it had not been worth noticing the hate and fear in the eyes of the people around her. Celes had been very aware of this, but the latter had still made an impression on her soul. 

“Regardless,” she says, eager to steer this conversation away from anything that might absolve her, “there was so much more to their history than I was told. They weren’t static at all. Over the centuries, Doma had different movements in fashion, and craftworks, and music-”

“Music!” Setzer also seems eager to follow her to safer ground. “That reminds me. I have a gift for you.”

“What?” Celes is strangely touched by the idea of him thinking of her even when he’s up in the skies, or wandering the other side of the globe. 

“Finish your work and then I’ll show you.”

“I’m not in the army anymore, I don’t take orders.”

“Finish your work... please?”

Celes laughs in spite of herself, and returns to her book. She scratches out her notes, while Setzer attends to his tea. He drinks it slowly, the way she’s seen him nurse expensive mixed drinks. 

After all this, she adjourns to their bedroom. Though this house has three bedrooms, they’ve fallen into the habit of sleeping side-by-side on the same mattress. This was another habit from those lonely months after the world ended. She’d spent so much time contemplating the horror of being the only surviving human, that part of her would always sleep better in the presence of a friend. The same appears to be true of Setzer as well. 

He enters the bedroom with a thin package tucked under one arm, and a feather duster in the other hand. 

“What’s that for?” Celes asks. 

Setzer crouches over the record player. The house had come with a lot of items from its long-missing (presumed-deceased occupants) and the record player had been one such thing.While it only took up space, neither of them seemed to have the heart to throw it away. 

“I bet you can’t guess what I won at a poker game,” Setzer says, sing-song, finishing his task. 

“You won a record?” From Celes’s observations, they were one of the things people often turned to for fuel in the troubled days after the continents had been re-arranged. 

“Indeed.” He lifts it out of his paper wrapping and sets it down on the record player. He lifts the needle and gently places it on the disc. 

There’s a few horrifying seconds where Celes dreads hearing Maria and Draco. As the record fizzles into life, though, she hears an unfamiliar leitmotif that’s much more at place in a comedic opera. 

Soon enough, the notes thread into one another, creating musical phrases. Those phrases resolve into melodies, and those melodies weave together to create movements. Sometimes the performers sing along with the orchestra, and sometimes they add a counter-melody, diving up and down the scale like an airship hurtling through turbulence. Like Setzer, they didn’t seem at all afraid of the powers they had unleashed through their genius. They didn’t seem to know - at all - that so many of them would be dead, soon. 

Celes sits down, heavily, and has to wrap her arms around herself. Setzer sits beside her and they lean into each other, listening to a jovial performance from another world. 

“It’s been so long since I heard a symphony like this.” 

Not that she heard it very often in Vector, either, other than marching tunes. _They_ weren’t like the people of Jidoor, after all. They had better things to focus on than rotting their brains with whimsical stories of love and comedy and tragedy. 

“I know,” Setzer says, “it’s been a long time for me as well.”

“Isn’t the opera house functional again? You could visit it.”

“Yes, well, I feel like if I went it would just remind me of how much has been lost. Apparently records are all I can stomach of opera. Even _that_ felt sadder than I expected. I sure know how to pick gifts, huh? I’ve heard that Thamasa has revived tragic plays that were performed during the War of the Magi. Maybe I should see if I can stomach those.”

This bothers Celes more than she knows how to say. Setzer had been everything she had been taught to disdain; fashionable, impulsive, creative for the sake of creativity. All that seemed a million years away, now.

The idea of Setzer disliking opera suddenly seems intolerable. 

Setzer wrests herself from his side, only to kneel across from him instead. She takes both of his hands in hers.

“I’ll show you opera still has a place in the world.” 

That makes him laugh, but something in his eyes glints as cool and determined as the edge of a sword. Or maybe the edge of a coin.

“Is that a bet, Celes?” His hand slides up to the back of her wrist, and his thumb meanders over the lower part of her palm.”

“It’s a bet. I can do it in a year.”

“A month.”

“Three months.”

“Fine. And the performance has to be here.”

“In Narshe?”

“Are we in another frozen wasteland?”

“Not the Jidoor opera house?”

“Nope. Let’s be generous patrons of the arts in our homeland.”

 _Our homeland._ Celes’s veins feel oddly warm, like she’d had some wine to drink.

“You say ‘we,’ but I’ll be the one pulling this off, Setzer.”

“You will be,” he agrees. “And I believe in you.” 

*

Within days of making their wager, Celes writes to Edgar asking for aid in the endeavor. You couldn’t become a successful general without knowing how to take advantage of all your resources, after all. Not that she asks for very much. She’s sure Edgar has performance troupes of his own, and it would feel hollow to win by importing someone else’s musicians for an evening. 

Still, she sends a messenger pigeon nonchalantly telling him about the bet, and asking for any costumes he’d be willing to lend her for a few weeks. 

Edgar sends his reply, not by bird but by a human courier. In fact, when Celes opens her door she finds herself face-to-face with someone who could be her twin. 

“Oh!” The sound Celes makes is entirely involuntary. That had been the one complaint her survivors had made about her in the military; her inability to hide surprise. 

“Yes. We meet at last, oh valiant understudy!”

Maria steps inside. In one hand she holds a briefcase. With the other hand, she pulls back the hood of her cloak with one hand. This action reveals that her hair is as close-cropped as Leo’s had been, and Celes feels a pang that she’s hard-pressed to name.

Before Celes says anything else, Maria hands over a letter stamped with Edgar’s seal. “This should answer any questions.”

_Dear Celes,_

_You should be like your roommate and bet a little higher. As a king, I can do better than sending you a trunk full of mothball-ridden garbs. I’m going to send you a veritable caravan full of costumes, instruments and props. I know you are aware of Maria’s genius, even though I don’t believe you have ever met. I have chosen her as my emissary for this cause. I cannot attend in person because I must see to a diplomatic event in Kohlingen. I expect to hear a favorable report, however, since I know what you are both capable of accomplishing._

_-Edgar_

“Will you perform?” Celes lifts her head from the paper, even though it’s an unsettling experience. Looking at Maria really is like gazing into a mirror. 

Maria shrugs dramatically; a purely Jidooran gesture. “You are the director, are you not? I know you’re also capable of singing.” 

Celes laughs. In truth, she had had no intention of casting herself as the lead. She’d advertised her opera in Narshe’s pubs and cafes, as well as in her academy. She’d garnered far more interest than expected. Most people who tried out could carry a tune, and she’d even found a man to play the hypothetical lead role. She was still searching for a female lead.

“You were the opera star.” Celes pauses. “Are? Why were you in Figaro and not in Jidoor?”

Now it’s Maria’s turn to smile. All of a sudden she looks nothing like Celes. 

“You recall how our paths crossed, yes?”

“Setzer was going to abduct you.” She’d never really asked him about that. Just before the world was destroyed, Celes had been far too busy. After the world had been destroyed, the question seemed oddly uncouth. 

“That was the official story, it’s true. Intentionally so. The opera house was quite exploitive of its artists, particularly regarding salary. There were many other places in the world I could have had a satisfying career as a performer, but I was beholden to a long contract with the opera house. Moreover, affairs were strictly forbidden. If I were to be ‘abducted’ and ‘married’ by a notorious gambler, however … My contract would then become null and void. Ah, this explanation makes you like him more, I see!” 

Celes’s face hurts and she realizes she’s been beaming. She touches her temples and tries to still her face to smoothness. Something about the tale is so quintessentially _Setzer_ in nature. He’d been ensconced in a glamorous, decadent world. He’d found the seam of pain hidden beneath and decided to assist someone in their time of need. 

“I’m happy because it’s predictable. Setzer is moved by beauty.” 

“Complimenting yourself in a roundabout way. I like you.” 

All at once Celes realizes she has been unable to tear her eyes away from Maria. The decision she’s been weighing suddenly seems like no decision at all.

“I’d like you to star in my opera.”

“Of course you do.” Maria folds her arm. “What opera are you performing?”

“I- well… Maria and Draco, I suppose.” She’s not happy about it, but it’s the only opera Celes knows well. All those nerves in the opera has had allowed her to commit it to memory in a near-eidetic fashion. She’d had whiled away the hours on the barge from Solitary Island by going through it, line-by-line, note-by-note.

“No!” Maria’s vehemence is a surprise. “That’s an old play for old times. I have written an opera that we should premier here in Narshe.” 

“You wrote an opera…”

Because it’s not a dismissal, Maria clearly takes it as an invitation. She sets her briefcase on the table nearby, and undoes the latches. There’s a stack of paper inside, bearing the title _The Queen and the Esper._ Maria reaches and touches the manuscript gently, as though it were a cat that might flee.

“This is about the esper Odin,” Celes says.

“Yes. After the world was destroyed, I ended up seeking shelter in Figaro. I was still young and strong and I’m good with technology from my childhood spent operating the lights and stage effects in the opera house. Instead, the Chancellor said we needed art more than ever, and I performed regularly for the citizens of Figaro. I also helped myself to the palace’s library and this was how I read about Odin and his queen. I was so moved I ended up composing my own opera about them.” 

Celes flips through a few pages, noting the way that spindly music notes were scattered across the page. Somehow all those dots and lines of ink were a code that created a melody. While she could read it well enough, she couldn’t imagine the talent that would allow someone to pluck music out from the ether. 

In some ways magic still existed. 

“I want us to perform this.”

For the first time, Maria deigns to look anything other than perfectly composed. “You haven’t heard it. This opera could be terrible.” 

“I want to perform this,” Celes repeats. “And I want you to be the lead soprano.” 

*

Celes expects it to be a bit difficult to get the entire ensemble to conceal the presence of Maria. Rumors about her might eventually make their way to Setzer, and Celes will have to concede that particular surprise. However, she won’t give up so easily. And their troupe of performers ends up going along with the plan quite gamely. 

“Why not?” says the young professor who will be performing the role of Odin. “Life in Narshe can be so dull in the winter, and surprising the infamous Setzer Gabbiani would be rather amusing for all of us.” 

Setzer, for his own part, already seems surprised at her success. 

“Perhaps you should have been a concertmaster,” he says on another night when he’s in town. He’s started to keep a tally of how often she ends up humming snatches of melody from the opera. 

They’re huddled together in bed, wide awake because a loud winter storm has a tendency to exacerbate insomnia. At one point, Celes had started tapping the beat from one of the opera’s leitmotifs. 

“It never would have happened,” Celes says, somehow glumly determined to punctuate an obvious joke with logic. “From a young age I was slotted into the army because I took to magicite infusions so well.” 

For a second she holds her hand against her own neck, feeling the pulse that had once thrummed with the power of Shiva. Then she looks over at Setzer, and even in the dark she can tell he’s giving her an appraising sort of look. 

“What was it like to lose your magic?” he asks. 

“I didn’t mind it too much,” she lies. 

Even in the dark, she can somehow _hear_ Setzer’s skepticism. 

“It took a while for me to fully comprehend how much I’d lost,” Celes admits. “When we realized magic was leaving the world, I was so worried Terra might die. Then I was so worried we’d _all_ die from the tower collapsing.” 

“But then-?”

“But then one day I tried to cast an ice spell on some vegetables to preserve them for the winter, because that’s something I often did without even thinking about it. But then I couldn’t. That’s when I really _felt_ that my magic was gone.” Celes had cried alone in the kitchen, then, and it had been hard to tell if she was _just_ mourning her magic.

Setzer aimlessly rubs her shoulder; a common gesture of comfort from him. 

“What was it like to lose your magic?” Celes asks, curious. 

“Well, it was mediated through magicite for most of us, right?”

“Right.” 

“It reminded me of my airship in a way. Sometimes technology can feel a little like magic. 

“Yes. The right configuration of gears and engines allows you to fly all over the world. 

“Right. Except none of those gears had had a soul. Something about it seemed very wrong. I was happy enough to lose the ability to cast those spells.”

With other people, Celes might worry that this kind of statement means they loathe her for mourning her loss. Somehow, she never fears any such thing with Setzer. Being afforded this kind of grace grants her the ability to sort through her emotions in peace. 

Setzer tugs aimlessly on the blanket, and accidentally pulls it off of Celes feet. He sits up to cover her again, and then remains upright. 

“Setzer?” 

Outside, the winter wind almost sounds like it has a keening sort of melody to it. 

“I actually stopped looking for Darill a long time ago. But now I feel like I hear people talking about her far more often than usual.” He slowly falls back onto the pillows. 

“What do they say?”

“People still remember her, after all this time. They have so many theories about how she might have died. People also have so many theories about how she might have survived.” 

Now it’s Celes’s turn to offer comfort. She reaches for his hand under the blankets. “That must be painful to hear.”

Setzer laughs, and it’s surprisingly warm. Considering the weather, considering the topic. 

“Actually, no. I can feel in my heart that she’s dead, but I’m so happy that she has a busy afterlife in legend. That’s a fitting tribute to her. Much better than a tomb.” 

“That must be why you like opera.” It’s an errant thought that Celes speaks out loud in spite of herself.

“What do you mean?”

“So many tragic operas are based on true, painful events. And yet the composers and performers turn into something… something almost euphoric.”

Setzer is silent for a long time, but Celes isn’t worried about his reaction. 

“I think you have something there,” he says, at last. “Operas revel in pain rather than concealing it. They find the beauty that remains.” 

Both of their heads have ended up on the same pillow, and now they’re facing one another. Celes ends up cupping the side of his face. The scar there slices through the side of his face, the way a river carves up a canyon. She imagines kissing him. She could do it so easily.

“Ahh, that scar.” Setzer touches the back of her hand. “There’s no gloriously tragic story behind it, I’m afraid. Just a standard barroom brawl. Maybe my next bet should involve daring you to write an opera about _that_.” 

*

For the moment, though, Celes is still required to be the director of Maria’s opera. The weeks of preparation go by in a blur of blocking, and choreography, and rehearsing. By now all of Narshe plans to attend, and so do many people from nearby towns. 

When the performance day finally arrives, she wakes up to Setzer placing a cup of tea beside her bed. 

“Maria used to drink this concoction constantly in the days before a performance. She’d also refrain from speaking to protect her vocal chords.” 

Celes opens her mouth to say she’s not going _that_ far, and then decides against it. Part of her is worried she’ll accidentally slip up and reveal the trick at the heart of this opera. Instead, she sips her tea and wonders if her smirk is too revealing. 

Setzer presses a kiss to her forehead. He’s done it before, but this time her heart leaps in her chest.

“Break a leg,” he says. 

“Bad idea,” she says, already forgetting her vow to keep from speaking. “No more cure magic, remember?” It’s the first time she’s really joked about this loss and it feels like an antidote. Their conversation in the dark somehow gave her permission. 

For the rest of the morning, it almost feels like she still has the ability to cast spells. Pre-performance jitters and excitement make her wonder if she’s somehow made herself float. She seems to be hovering above her body as she addresses her performers and gives them some last-minute instructions.

True to what Setzer said, Maria refrains from talking. Her eyes are ravenous, though, as Celes helps her into a wig. Maria might not miss Jidoor’s opera house, but part of her still misses opera. 

Narshe has weather prediction down to an artform, and they’re able to identify the handful of unseasonably warm days allotted to them. Today, it’s one of those early spring days that almost feels like summer (at least, as warm as summer can get in this town.) It was important to be correct about this, because this spontaneous performance troupe universally decided they wanted to make a statement. They wanted to outdo Jidoor. They want to perform _outside_. 

Like Thamasa, Narshe had also once had a long-dormant tradition of stagecraft, and an area designated for performances. There were benches carved into the side of the mountain, leading downwards into a stage. The river behind was often frozen, but a few weeks ago it had melted, save for bits of ice gently drifting along its current. The water had an uncanny ability to amplify sound, which was why their ancient forebears had selected this location in the first place.

The moment arrives when all the performers are in their places, and the audience has not yet arrived. Celes ends up climbing up into an alcove hidden in one of the cliff edges. Towards the end of this journey, her muscles ache and she’s reminded of crawling back up the Floating Continent towards Kefka. When she reaches her destination, though, she makes sure to stare at the landscape below. There are no wrathful deities here. There are just performers making their way through scales. There’s just an audience filing their way on in. She can’t make out any individual words, but the excitement is palpable.

And, of course, there’s Setzer. His coat is billowing in the gentle breeze and she almost wants to call out a greeting. 

Soon enough, though, the musicians pick up their instruments and the melodies they weave pull the audience into the world of the opera. Celes included. 

She really should see this performance as a bunch of moving parts, much like the engines in Setzer’s airship. After all, she’d crafted a lot of them. For example, there were a fair amount of pyrotechnics on display in order to simulate the furor of the War of the Magic. Just like any soldier in the Gestahlian military, she had been expected to know how to set fires in order to smoke an enemy out. She had used this skill to ruthless effect in Maranda. She had been taught this skill in order to turn her into a human weapon, and now she was using it in the service of art. There was something grimly satisfying about this. 

Celes isn’t really thinking about this, though. Her performers are far too talented, and the fire is a mere embellishment to their performances. Their voices alone convey the brutal totality of war. Even though she knows every note by heart, she finds herself seduced into the story all the same. Her whole body seems to absorb the tale being told, and she feels the raucous music practically humming below her skin.

But then, all the clamor stops. At first the soprano solo drifts in from far away, as the battle silently rages on stage. 

And then Maria - no, she’s the Queen now - comes into view. She’s floating to the stage on a barge, pouring out her grief over all the lives lost to war. Her dress is embroidered in silver, and the jewels in her tiara capture the sunlight and reflect it back. The water that carries her wavers and shimmers like silver fabric in a dress or a flag.

Odin is entranced by her. How could he fail to be? 

The whole audience seems to be holding a collective breath, and Celes feels tears on her face. She looks down for Setzer’s reaction. 

_Oh, he’s in love._

That, in and of itself, is quite a revelation. Then she remembers he thinks he’s staring at _Celes_. There’s no possibility that he thinks he’s looking at Maria. There’s none of the surprise he would naturally feel at seeing an old acquaintance. 

Celes tries to contend with this revelation, but the opera continues on and on and there’s no space inside her to decide what to do next. After a while, she gives up and succumbs to her nameless, euphoric feelings. 

*

Eventually, though, reality intrudes. 

Celes is hiding behind a tree as Setzer makes his way to greet the performers. Within moments, she hears the exclamation she has anticipated for weeks. 

“Wait… you’re not Celes!” 

She chooses that moment to reveal herself, and within moments she and Maria are clinging to each other and laughing at Setzer’s expression. Soon enough he’s joined them. 

“Well, I’m glad to see you’re alive,” he says to Maria. There’s an obvious friendship there, but nothing else. 

“You could be a little more excited about my survival. Although Celes here did tell me you rank her beauty higher, so perhaps I’m not too surprised.”

“Celes!” Setzer holds a hand over his heart. “I might not recover from this betrayal!”

Celes reaches for his hand and makes him stop miming as though he had been shot by Edgar’s crossbow. And then she keeps holding onto his hand. 

Setzer and Maria proceed to share details about what they know of those who shared their social circle in Jidoor. Then Maria ends up wandering over into a different crowd of people, all clearly eager to shower her with compliments and silken flowers. 

Still holding hands, Celes and Setzer end up walking over into an area where boulders will shelter them from all curious eyes. 

“So… Maria, huh? This feels like you cheated a little.” 

“I’ve cheated before. Remember the double-headed coin?”

“Oh, how could I forget. One of these days I’ll attend an opera, and the soprano will actually be the person on the billing.” 

“Maria’s much more talented than me. You should have known the instant she arrived on stage.” 

“I was too busy being distracted with how much you impress me.” 

“Again, that wasn’t me.”

“No.” Setzer’s hands are on her shoulders now. “But you _are_ the one who made this happen. And if this is how opera is going to be in the new world … Then I think I have space in my heart for it, after all.”

They didn’t agree on the terms of the bet. They hadn’t actually wagered anything. Celes realizes this fatal flaw, and knows it couldn’t have escaped Setzer’s attention from the beginning. Celes leans forward and finally kisses Setzer. And - though it’s their first time doing this - it all feels perfectly natural. 

“Alright,” she says, after they pause. “I clearly won the bet. What do you owe me?” 

“Anything you want, Celes.”

**Author's Note:**

> -Even if Sabin is Sir Not Appearing In This Fic, I love the part of the World of Ruin where it's just Celes, Sabin, Setzer, and Edgar and wanted to do a shoutout to that whole vibe. 
> 
> -It's probably totally implausible to pull off an opera performance like this, but Celes canonically learned an entire opera overnight so I decided to lean in to the implausibility!


End file.
